ABSTRACT
Sir Geoffrey Chaucer's success established the two chief principles of English verse —namely, that its rhythm is determined by stress, and that its normal rhythm is rising or " iambic." Quite reasonable would it have been for Chaucer to adopt the French tradition of syllabic scansion; but he relied on his English instinct for stress, the regularity of which he varied by slight deviations from his ideal metrical pattern. Chaucer's early use of the octosyllabic couplet, a metre which was common to both French and English poetry, seems to have been suggested and influenced by Le Roman de la Rose. Chaucer's ballades are of several stanzas of seven or eight lines, with usually the last line of the first stanza repeated as a refrain. The moral ballades reveal Chaucer in his reflective moods; and they indicate that his study of Boethius had resulted in the poet's acceptance of the philosopher's doctrines of faith, fortitude and nobility.
